PinkCheese
I've never been much of a Star Wars fan. Despite that I have watched a lot of it and played even more. That makes me feel confident in saying that this is probably the best thing to ever come from the prequels.
There isn't much of a story, but what story it has is greatly uplifted by its characters. Your squad are all incredibly charismatic, likeable characters. They did a great job of making them feel distinct despite them all being clones. They aren't deep by any means, but when the game threw the "are you invested" test at me, I definitely passed.
The game plays like a fairly standard console shooter of its time. Closer to something like Medal of Honor: European Assault than more tactical PC shooters like Rainbow Six 3. It does have tactical elements, you can order your squad around and make decisions like whether to breach a door with explosives or to slice the console and sneak in, but the friendly AI mostly takes care of itself so it feels more like a standard shooter for the most part. The worst part about the gameplay is the weapon limit. Three of your four weapon slots are all attachments for your blaster. You only get to carry one additional weapon. What makes it worse is that all the other weapons are the coolest in the game. You get a really cool Trandoshan shotgun and an LMG. You get a Geonosian beam weapon that has clicking finger-like machines on its side that speed up when firing, drawing the blood from the bugs and using it as a weapon. You can even use the Wookie bowcaster! That alone is my biggest problem with the game, you don't get to use all the cool weapons as often as you should.
Speaking of Wookies, when you get to Kashyyyk you can feel the budget and time starting to run out. You start to notice padding that hasn't really been in the game prior, on top of the overall lack of polish in that part of the game. The last act on Kashyyyk is the only part of the game I found noticeable bugs. Nothing game-breaking mind you, but distracting all the same.
This is very much a game that you should play. It is one of the best Star Wars games, with a cool new take on the setting that is darker and grittier, but still recognizably Star Wars. Seeing the world from this perspective is a breath of fresh air honestly, it was nice to see. If any Star Wars game deserves a reboot/sequel, its this one.
There isn't much of a story, but what story it has is greatly uplifted by its characters. Your squad are all incredibly charismatic, likeable characters. They did a great job of making them feel distinct despite them all being clones. They aren't deep by any means, but when the game threw the "are you invested" test at me, I definitely passed.
The game plays like a fairly standard console shooter of its time. Closer to something like Medal of Honor: European Assault than more tactical PC shooters like Rainbow Six 3. It does have tactical elements, you can order your squad around and make decisions like whether to breach a door with explosives or to slice the console and sneak in, but the friendly AI mostly takes care of itself so it feels more like a standard shooter for the most part. The worst part about the gameplay is the weapon limit. Three of your four weapon slots are all attachments for your blaster. You only get to carry one additional weapon. What makes it worse is that all the other weapons are the coolest in the game. You get a really cool Trandoshan shotgun and an LMG. You get a Geonosian beam weapon that has clicking finger-like machines on its side that speed up when firing, drawing the blood from the bugs and using it as a weapon. You can even use the Wookie bowcaster! That alone is my biggest problem with the game, you don't get to use all the cool weapons as often as you should.
Speaking of Wookies, when you get to Kashyyyk you can feel the budget and time starting to run out. You start to notice padding that hasn't really been in the game prior, on top of the overall lack of polish in that part of the game. The last act on Kashyyyk is the only part of the game I found noticeable bugs. Nothing game-breaking mind you, but distracting all the same.
This is very much a game that you should play. It is one of the best Star Wars games, with a cool new take on the setting that is darker and grittier, but still recognizably Star Wars. Seeing the world from this perspective is a breath of fresh air honestly, it was nice to see. If any Star Wars game deserves a reboot/sequel, its this one.
1986
The original Metroid kinda sucks ass and not just because its a janky NES game. At no point did interacting with the game feel good. Some of the music is iconic and pretty good, but most of the game I was just miserable. You can excuse a lot in early NES games as the medium being too young to have these problems sorted out, but I don't think you can do that with a lot of Metroid. It just feels bad.
2012
A much improved sequel. They improved on the things that worked in SA1 while throwing out the things that didn't. I don't hate the radar change like most people seem to, and the mech stages can be pretty fun. The only real sore spots for me are the boss fights. Most can be beaten in 20 seconds and are inoffensive, but sadly the final two fights are the worst in the game. Both are definitely elevated by the music though. The music in SA2 is SUCH a step up its absurd.
Really great western shooter.
2005
Impeccably written, acted, and presented. There isn’t really anything that stands out as less than stellar in terms of the presentation/story. The platforming is kinda mid though. Not bad per se, just kinda basic and doesn’t really stand out. The combat is definitely the worst part of the game, it’s just really simple and boring.
1998
A cool little adventure game that sadly never came over back in the day. It reminds me a lot of something like Echo Night, just without as interesting of a story. It builds a really strong atmosphere early on that sadly disappears as soon as you realize all the threats are scripted. Still I really like the setting. Seeing this school that is all decorated for a festival be turned into this horrific environment was really cool. I like the monster design too. It has some really nice looking monsters that hold up really well. I was actually surprised how well the visuals held up in general. All the character models have more moving parts than I was expecting and generally look pretty nice for a PS1 game, and the environmental design plays a huge part in building that tense atmosphere.
The story itself is goofy but has a couple good moments and an ending that caught me off guard in the weirdest way. I certainly wasn't expecting the threats themselves to be what they were. The fan translation is really well done, if you took out some of the swearing you could have seen this being official back in the 90s.
Progression can be obtuse but thankfully it's never too bad, I managed to beat the game in about two and a half hours without a guide so it goes pretty quickly. If you can stomach dealing with the control scheme of a PS1 first person game, I'd definitely say give this a go! It's a nice spooky time game that at the very least has some killer vibes.
The story itself is goofy but has a couple good moments and an ending that caught me off guard in the weirdest way. I certainly wasn't expecting the threats themselves to be what they were. The fan translation is really well done, if you took out some of the swearing you could have seen this being official back in the 90s.
Progression can be obtuse but thankfully it's never too bad, I managed to beat the game in about two and a half hours without a guide so it goes pretty quickly. If you can stomach dealing with the control scheme of a PS1 first person game, I'd definitely say give this a go! It's a nice spooky time game that at the very least has some killer vibes.
I genuinely really enjoyed the story stuff they added and the limit cut bosses were some of the best content in the series along with the new secret boss.
This review contains spoilers
I’d like to start off by saying I was not a huge fan of Zero Dawn. The gameplay bored the hell out of me and I didn’t care much about the story. Now having said that, I came away kind of impressed with Forbidden West in a weird way. Not impressed at how much it improved, but how much it’s story felt like it was handled by people who were so good at ideas but couldn’t handle the execution, yet still managed to work on one of Sony’s premier exclusives.
I’ll start off being nice. I enjoyed the gameplay a lot more this time around. Everything felt snappier and more fluid while still greatly expanding some areas like the melee combat. The melee feels a lot better this time around. They clearly spent a lot of time refining it and even gave it its own skill tree this time around. The only major change they need is a lock on. Trying to keep track of fast moving enemies while also dodging and attacking is just too much.
One thing I really can’t complain about is the presentation. The graphics are stellar and are a good showcase for the PS5, even if I think Rift Apart still impressed me more. Seeing a game that looks this good in this large of an open world run at 60fps is frankly insane. The soundtrack is nice but not groundbreaking imo.
The characters this time felt much more fleshed out and like real people. All of the main cast members were well written… with one major exception that I’ll get to later. I genuinely really loved Beta, Alva and Kotallo, they were all great characters that felt fully fleshed out. Erend went through his character arc last time, but they did a much better job with Varl this time. He was a really great companion. Seeing him and Aloy grow together throughout the game was really great. I liked Zo too but… I’ll get there.
Now before I get to the bad, I would like to say that even if Beta isn’t meant to be neurodivergent, I think they did a really great job of creating a ND character that doesn’t make it seem like it’s a bad thing. She’s accepted by her friends despite that and it made me happy to see that kind of representation even if it wasn’t on purpose.
Now, I need to talk about this writing. Guerrilla does a great job making interesting characters and coming up with good ideas, BUT they cannot execute on those ideas. They fumbled the ball every chance they could. The Zeniths are maybe the best example of this. They start off interesting, but it doesn’t take long before they get hilariously stupid. The reveal that these aren’t descendants of Far Zenith, but are ACTUALLY THE ORIGINAL FAR ZENITH was incredibly dumb and immediately made me dislike them. It serves no purpose other than for a reason for Tilda to try to kidnap Aloy because she left Elisabet on Earth 1000 years ago. Her reasoning that leads to her being the final boss felt flimsy at best.
The final reveal of Nemesis made me fucking scoff. The sudden escalation doesn’t feel earned and comes off as a cheap way to add a sequel hook because Sony wanted a trilogy.
Now, the thing that genuinely made me stop respecting Guerrilla’s writers was Varl’s death and how they treated Zo afterwards. Varl’s death is the same level of contrived at Joel in TLOU2. They are both examples of writers needing a driving force in their story, but being unable to come up with a natural way to do it, so they make the character uncharacteristically stupid. Varl is smart. He’s a warrior that knows how to think on his feet. He saw what happened when Aloy fought the Zeniths before. He would not stand there and try to stand up to them. He would have tried to get Beta out as soon as he dropped the Machine on Erik. Instead they decided he needed to stand there and stare while he climbed out from under it and then started swinging at him so Erik could kill him so Guerrilla could have their driving force for the team going into act 3. It does a disservice to Varl’s character and makes the writing team looks like hacks. They also decided that after he died they should reveal that Zo is pregnant because that’s the only way to use a female love interest in a story like this right? It feels so hackish and not like something that should be coming out of one of Sony’s premier devs. It’s a cheap attempt at making the player sad and only leads to frustration.
Forbidden West has lots of highs and some very low lows. I enjoyed the gameplay and the most of the characters were really well done, but the lows the writing reaches are unacceptable for a AAA game. On gameplay alone this could easily be an 8 or 9. The story on the other hand is maybe a 5. So I’ll split the difference and give it a 7/10 I guess.
I’ll start off being nice. I enjoyed the gameplay a lot more this time around. Everything felt snappier and more fluid while still greatly expanding some areas like the melee combat. The melee feels a lot better this time around. They clearly spent a lot of time refining it and even gave it its own skill tree this time around. The only major change they need is a lock on. Trying to keep track of fast moving enemies while also dodging and attacking is just too much.
One thing I really can’t complain about is the presentation. The graphics are stellar and are a good showcase for the PS5, even if I think Rift Apart still impressed me more. Seeing a game that looks this good in this large of an open world run at 60fps is frankly insane. The soundtrack is nice but not groundbreaking imo.
The characters this time felt much more fleshed out and like real people. All of the main cast members were well written… with one major exception that I’ll get to later. I genuinely really loved Beta, Alva and Kotallo, they were all great characters that felt fully fleshed out. Erend went through his character arc last time, but they did a much better job with Varl this time. He was a really great companion. Seeing him and Aloy grow together throughout the game was really great. I liked Zo too but… I’ll get there.
Now before I get to the bad, I would like to say that even if Beta isn’t meant to be neurodivergent, I think they did a really great job of creating a ND character that doesn’t make it seem like it’s a bad thing. She’s accepted by her friends despite that and it made me happy to see that kind of representation even if it wasn’t on purpose.
Now, I need to talk about this writing. Guerrilla does a great job making interesting characters and coming up with good ideas, BUT they cannot execute on those ideas. They fumbled the ball every chance they could. The Zeniths are maybe the best example of this. They start off interesting, but it doesn’t take long before they get hilariously stupid. The reveal that these aren’t descendants of Far Zenith, but are ACTUALLY THE ORIGINAL FAR ZENITH was incredibly dumb and immediately made me dislike them. It serves no purpose other than for a reason for Tilda to try to kidnap Aloy because she left Elisabet on Earth 1000 years ago. Her reasoning that leads to her being the final boss felt flimsy at best.
The final reveal of Nemesis made me fucking scoff. The sudden escalation doesn’t feel earned and comes off as a cheap way to add a sequel hook because Sony wanted a trilogy.
Now, the thing that genuinely made me stop respecting Guerrilla’s writers was Varl’s death and how they treated Zo afterwards. Varl’s death is the same level of contrived at Joel in TLOU2. They are both examples of writers needing a driving force in their story, but being unable to come up with a natural way to do it, so they make the character uncharacteristically stupid. Varl is smart. He’s a warrior that knows how to think on his feet. He saw what happened when Aloy fought the Zeniths before. He would not stand there and try to stand up to them. He would have tried to get Beta out as soon as he dropped the Machine on Erik. Instead they decided he needed to stand there and stare while he climbed out from under it and then started swinging at him so Erik could kill him so Guerrilla could have their driving force for the team going into act 3. It does a disservice to Varl’s character and makes the writing team looks like hacks. They also decided that after he died they should reveal that Zo is pregnant because that’s the only way to use a female love interest in a story like this right? It feels so hackish and not like something that should be coming out of one of Sony’s premier devs. It’s a cheap attempt at making the player sad and only leads to frustration.
Forbidden West has lots of highs and some very low lows. I enjoyed the gameplay and the most of the characters were really well done, but the lows the writing reaches are unacceptable for a AAA game. On gameplay alone this could easily be an 8 or 9. The story on the other hand is maybe a 5. So I’ll split the difference and give it a 7/10 I guess.
One of the best racing games ever with a killer soundtrack.
2016
I sat down and beat it in one sitting for my first playthrough. So fucking good.
More annoying censorship but it looks and runs infinitely better than the N64 version and feels much better to play so its always my go to version of this game.
2021
This is a really gorgeous game that has a gameplay loop that really clicked with me and a story that had me interested until they fumbled it at the end.
It’s also incredibly janky. I had many bugs and a few freezes in my playthrough, with a crash or two sprinkled on top. Most animations are bad and the human characters just look terrible (which is why they all have their face covered). The localization is also full of typos and poor grammar, not to mention having a different voice actor voice at least one line by the main character that you are going to hear multiple times in a playthrough. But none of it was bad enough that it took me out of the experience, I usually just chuckled and moved on.
I really like the snappiness and immediacy of the combat. It’s very quick and brutal like a real gunfight would be. Everyone (including you) dies in a matter of one or two hits from most weapons. The weapons also just feel really good, especially the shotgun.
The survival elements had me on my toes for maybe the first five hours but it didn’t take long for me to get things to a point where I didn’t need to worry about it anymore. At the beginning I had to make a couple tough choices but it didn’t extend much past that.
What really surprised me were how effective the horror elements were. There were quite a few moments where I was genuinely on edge and scared during my playthrough. The monsters are suitably creepy and the music works with the visuals so well that some parts of the game are surprisingly scary.
The story has some really neat things in it and had me interested until the end. I love the setting and I enjoyed going through each character’s story and having to make those hard decisions and sometimes make calls I really don’t want to. The ending was pretty bad though. The lead up to it is pretty cool and I liked the heist a lot but after that it’s just a twist that ruined a pretty interesting villain and a Fallout-esque slideshow telling you what happened to all the people you met along the way. It just left me feeling empty.
Overall, as much as I don’t like the ending, it didn’t hurt the whole experience enough that I wouldn’t recommend it. I genuinely enjoyed much of my time with it despite it being a janky and buggy mess.
It’s also incredibly janky. I had many bugs and a few freezes in my playthrough, with a crash or two sprinkled on top. Most animations are bad and the human characters just look terrible (which is why they all have their face covered). The localization is also full of typos and poor grammar, not to mention having a different voice actor voice at least one line by the main character that you are going to hear multiple times in a playthrough. But none of it was bad enough that it took me out of the experience, I usually just chuckled and moved on.
I really like the snappiness and immediacy of the combat. It’s very quick and brutal like a real gunfight would be. Everyone (including you) dies in a matter of one or two hits from most weapons. The weapons also just feel really good, especially the shotgun.
The survival elements had me on my toes for maybe the first five hours but it didn’t take long for me to get things to a point where I didn’t need to worry about it anymore. At the beginning I had to make a couple tough choices but it didn’t extend much past that.
What really surprised me were how effective the horror elements were. There were quite a few moments where I was genuinely on edge and scared during my playthrough. The monsters are suitably creepy and the music works with the visuals so well that some parts of the game are surprisingly scary.
The story has some really neat things in it and had me interested until the end. I love the setting and I enjoyed going through each character’s story and having to make those hard decisions and sometimes make calls I really don’t want to. The ending was pretty bad though. The lead up to it is pretty cool and I liked the heist a lot but after that it’s just a twist that ruined a pretty interesting villain and a Fallout-esque slideshow telling you what happened to all the people you met along the way. It just left me feeling empty.
Overall, as much as I don’t like the ending, it didn’t hurt the whole experience enough that I wouldn’t recommend it. I genuinely enjoyed much of my time with it despite it being a janky and buggy mess.
SPACE
2021
This review contains spoilers
I was really surprised how much I ended up loving this game. The first 80% is incredible and rarely misses a beat. Exploring Dahna and liberating the different sections of the world was incredible and it really hit some topics and followed through with some punches I really wasn’t expecting it to. My biggest problem was that each area ended with a dungeon that went on a little too long and was uninspired in their layouts. I really feel like the game could have ended at the halfway point and that would have been a great game on its own right, but to have the balls to go “alright now play season 2 fuckers” and throw you into the aftermath of that first half is incredible.
The point the game started to really stumble is when you can tell Bamco told them “no we can’t delay anymore ship it” because that’s when they really start to fumble the themes of the game up to that point and the dungeons get bad. What started as “unbridled hate begets more hate so learn to hold those responsible accountable while not turning that hatred back on the innocent” became “my friends are my power” and while I love these characters a lot and think they hold up the worst parts of the game that message didn’t really gel with the world they had created at this point, at least to me. The game as a whole really stumbles at the end though, the final dungeon is just horrible. If your idea of a difficult final dungeon is making almost every enemy encounter a mini boss that is probably about 5-10 levels higher than the average player at that point than you fucked up big time. The final dungeon alone took me as long as one of the main areas of the first half of the game. In the five hours I spent in the final dungeon, I could have started a fresh save and beat Balseph. That is unreasonable. The final boss rush was really cool at least and that final battle at the end was the best fight in the game. Even if the game stumbled the landed a bit, I teared up seeing all the art of everyone living their lives in the credits, with the shot of Alphen and Shionne in wedding garb hitting me like a truck and really making me realize how much I loved these characters. If nothing else, they really, REALLY nailed the party members.
I just wish Ray Chase could miss once.
The point the game started to really stumble is when you can tell Bamco told them “no we can’t delay anymore ship it” because that’s when they really start to fumble the themes of the game up to that point and the dungeons get bad. What started as “unbridled hate begets more hate so learn to hold those responsible accountable while not turning that hatred back on the innocent” became “my friends are my power” and while I love these characters a lot and think they hold up the worst parts of the game that message didn’t really gel with the world they had created at this point, at least to me. The game as a whole really stumbles at the end though, the final dungeon is just horrible. If your idea of a difficult final dungeon is making almost every enemy encounter a mini boss that is probably about 5-10 levels higher than the average player at that point than you fucked up big time. The final dungeon alone took me as long as one of the main areas of the first half of the game. In the five hours I spent in the final dungeon, I could have started a fresh save and beat Balseph. That is unreasonable. The final boss rush was really cool at least and that final battle at the end was the best fight in the game. Even if the game stumbled the landed a bit, I teared up seeing all the art of everyone living their lives in the credits, with the shot of Alphen and Shionne in wedding garb hitting me like a truck and really making me realize how much I loved these characters. If nothing else, they really, REALLY nailed the party members.
I just wish Ray Chase could miss once.
RE8 has the scariest segment to ever be in the series and that alone makes me rank it so highly. The Beneviento Estate is a highlight of the series as a whole and was genuinely terrifying for a first time play through.
Village also has my favorite story of the series as a whole and maybe the first genuinely great story in the series that isn't just a very basic A to B plot held up by its characters. This game cemented Ethan as one of the best protagonists in the series and really made me love its villains. Starting with the obvious, Lady Dimitrescu is great (horny not included). Her trying to keep her composure and keep up her "ladylike" facade while chasing you down is fantastic. Heisenberg is probably my favorite of the bunch just because his dialog is fantastically written and his VA pulls it off in stride. His boss fight is also my favorite in the game.
The gameplay is a more polished version of RE7 with some added touches that just make it the better game. The combat is more satisfying simply due to the increase in animation and sound quality while the exploration is more rewarding due to the amount of collectables and treasures to find and the larger amount of puzzles which RE7 sadly lacked in.
Village also has my favorite story of the series as a whole and maybe the first genuinely great story in the series that isn't just a very basic A to B plot held up by its characters. This game cemented Ethan as one of the best protagonists in the series and really made me love its villains. Starting with the obvious, Lady Dimitrescu is great (horny not included). Her trying to keep her composure and keep up her "ladylike" facade while chasing you down is fantastic. Heisenberg is probably my favorite of the bunch just because his dialog is fantastically written and his VA pulls it off in stride. His boss fight is also my favorite in the game.
The gameplay is a more polished version of RE7 with some added touches that just make it the better game. The combat is more satisfying simply due to the increase in animation and sound quality while the exploration is more rewarding due to the amount of collectables and treasures to find and the larger amount of puzzles which RE7 sadly lacked in.